Recombinance Makes Us Human

1
Recombinance Makes Us Human

• Welcoming Address
• First International Kyma Symposium
• Barcelona 8-10 October 2009

2
Human Immune system

• Dynamic complex system
• Innate (shared with invertebrates, plants)
• Specific to pathogens encountered in the past
• Adaptive (in vertebrates only)
• Can generate, test, remember new sequences for
  antibodies to pathogens that do not yet exist
• Can generate millions of antigen-specific
  antibodies by permuting just a few hundred genes
• Source of acquired immunity (why vaccines work)
• Gives vertebrates a chance against pathogens that
  evolve much faster than we do
• Recombinant ability acquired when a virus
  infected a primordial cell

3
Immunologist Susumo Ohno

• Innate system Epimetheus
• Backward-looking
• Result of natural selection
• Reacting
• Adaptive system Prometheus
• Forward-looking
• Generative
• Anticipating

4
Prometheus Epimetheus

• Prometheus
• Gave fire to humans
• Epimetheus
• Opened Pandoras box
• Evil, pain disease

5
Anthropology of Fire

• Frances D Burton Fire The Spark that Ignited
  Human Evolution
• Richard Wrangham Catching Fire How Cooking Made
  Us Human

6
What a big brain you have!

• The better to network with, my dear
• The Brain from Top to Bottom
• http//thebrain.mcgill.ca

7
The Social MindMachiavellian Intelligence
Hypothesis

• Neocortex evolved for Theory of Mind
• Theory that another individual has a mind
• Ability to infer intentions mental state of
  others
• Understanding how your behavior affects others
• Ability to engage in reciprocal social
  interactions
• Robin Dunbar (2003) "The Social Brain Mind,
  language and society in evolutionary perspective
• http//www.lifesci.sussex.ac.uk/teaching/C1021/TBC
  E social brain 2009.pdf
• Mind-reading

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Level -gtSize of Frontal Lobe

• Level 1
• I think that Kurt has some food
• C (f)
• Level 2 (children lt 4 years, some primates?)
• I think that Kurt thinks there is some food over
  there
• I think that you understood what I just said
• C ( K ( f ) )
• Level 3 (10-11 year old children)
• I think that Kurt thinks that I dont know where
  the food is
• C ( K ( C ( f ) not ) )

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C ( K ( C ( food ) not ) )

• Journal of Cultural and Evolutionary Psychology,
  4(2006)34, 231246 DOI 10.1556/JCEP.4.2006.34.3
  HIGHER-ORDER THEORY OF MIND AND SOCIAL
  COMPETENCE IN SCHOOL-AGE CHILDREN BETHANY LIDDLE
  AND DANIEL NETTLE

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Consenting Adults Only

• Level 4
• I think Kurt doesnt know that I dont know where
  Mr Javelina thinks the food is
• Level 5
• Shakespeare intends that the audience believes
  that Iago intends that Othello supposes that
  Desdemona loves Cassio, who in fact loves Bianca
• Level 6
• Chess? (if future mental states add to the
  recursion)
• I think she will think that I dont realize my
  queen is exposed and when she takes it, she will
  think that Im going to move my knight because
  shell think that I dont realize that my knight
  can move into position to take her queen

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False Belief Task

• Preschool children ( age 4) 85
• Downs syndrome 86
• Aspergers syndrome 20
• Baron-Cohen S, Leslie AM, Frith U (1985). "Does
  the autistic child have a 'theory of mind'?"
  Cognition 21 (1) 37-46.

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Neocortex to Group Size

• Barrett et al (2002) Human Evolutionary
  Psychology
• Figure 9.3 NeocortexToMeanGroupSize

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Extrapolating for Humans

• Core group size 150
• 42 of the day spent in grooming activities
• How many in your Facebook group?
• How much time do you spend grooming it?

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Auditory Grooming

• RIM Dunbar Language, Music and Laughter in
  Evolutionary Perspective chapter in Evolution of
  communication systems a comparative approach,
  Page 90 By D. Kimbrough Oller, Ulrike Griebel The
  MIT Press (September 1, 2004)

www.gibbons.de
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Language as Grooming

• Language as efficient form of grooming
• Social cohesion while working
• Social cohesion at a distance
• Expanded size of core group
• Recursive groups of groups
• Distributed cognition
• Gary Larson The Far Side

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Trading Brains

• Epimethean brain
• Innate abilities from evolutionary past
  (instinct)
• Reactive
• Promethean brain
• Recursive recombinations
• Knowledge distributed in social networks
• Anticipatory
• Steven Mithin (2006) The Singing Neanderthals
• Domain specific knowledge
• Cognitive fluidity

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Autistic Savants

• Oliver Sacks describes Stephen Wiltshire
• Prodigious drawing ability _at_ age 5
• Disinterested in
• People
• Language
• Play

http//www.stephenwiltshire.co.uk/
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The Price of Prometheus Gift

• suddenly appearing, full-blown, 'unchildlike
• VS incrementally developing over many years

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Recombinance in Music

• Finite scales durations (ragas talas)
• An infinite variety of novel melodies
• Dynamic structures at different timescales
• Interval, motive, phrase, movement, sonata etc
• Electro-acoustic music
• Continuous functions recursively combined _at_
  different timescales and scale factors

20
Recombinance in Language

• Finite set of words in the dictionary
• Combined using a recursive grammar
• Generates millions of novel expressions ideas
• Hofstadter Gödel Escher Bach
• Recursive transition networks

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Mathematics

• Innate Subitizing up to 4
• Infants, animals
• Recursion gives us Counting
• 2 1 1, 3 2 1, etc
• or Clustering, Grouping
• Observe indefinitely repeating processes
• Bouncing ball
• But humans add in the limit

22
Recursion makes us human?

• Infinity self-awareness of finitude
• Key to happiness ignore your neocortex?

thenewheretics.wordpress.com
23
Recombinant Culture

• Language as efficient form of grooming
• Social cohesion while working
• Social cohesion at a distance
• Written language
• Electronic communication

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Language as Grooming

• Language as efficient form of grooming
• Social cohesion while working
• Social cohesion at a distance
• Written language
• Electronic communication
• Gary Larson The Far Side

25
Power of Social Networks

• To know things we have not experienced
• Exponential expansion of what we can know,
  remember learn

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Welcome to the Symposium!

• Let the auditory grooming begin!